Lightweight, plastic cervical collars come in a variety of designs Traditional two-piece collars of the type shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,756,226 and 4,886,052 use semi-circular body halves to provide cervical support. From the method disclosed by U.S. Pat. No. 3,622,057, the body halves are fabricated by shaping pliable cross-linked foam. Despite their acknowledged successful performance, such two-piece collars are considered less desirable than other cervical collars for certain uses. In particular, such collars are considered undesirable for use in emergency vehicles where their relative bulk makes them difficult to store and because of the difficulties that arise from trying to slip a semi-circular rear collar half beneath the neck of an accident victim at the same time the emergency care providers are trying to immobilize the victim.
A number of cervical collars have been designed to respond to this problem. These include, for example, those shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,413,619; 4,712,540; 4,987,891; 5,060,637; and 5,215,517. Such collars typically include unitary front and rear body sections cut from a non-foamed, relatively stiff, yet flexible, plastic sheet. A hybrid cervical collar as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,083,553 has also been designed to respond to this need. The two-piece collar disclosed in that patent includes separate front and rear body sections cut from stiff, flexible plastic sheets.
The above-described collars generally comprise a body section fabricated from a resiliently flexible flat plastic sheet material and an integrally attached chin support which is also typically fabricated from a flat plastic sheet material. The integrally attached chin support is either mechanically fastened to, or monolithically formed with a front portion of the body section, joining it at the distal ends of the chin support. However, since the chin supports on these collars are typically provided as a flat structure, they must be folded into a cup-shape and mechanically fastened at a central portion of the front body section.
Thus, while certain cervical collars known in the prior art are easy to store and easy to position beneath the neck of an accident victim, it is believed that such collars do not provide the comfort and support provided by traditional two-piece, semi-circular designs.
Moreover, these prior art cervical collars all suffer from a number of drawbacks, especially with respect to the chin support area. The existing collars have mechanically fastened chin supports which results in inadequate support, lack of stability, and decreased reliability. The inadequate under chin support provided by existing collars cause the head of the wearer to slip from the chin support into the interior of the collar. Further, the mechanically connected chin support of the existing collars causes increased flexing and decreased rigidity of the chin support and does not adequately stabilize the cervical-spinal region of the wearer. Thus, existing collars can potentially compound the wearer's spinal injuries.
Also, with continued use, the mechanical fastenings typically employed to attach the chin support to front body sections may fail and render the collar useless. Finally, the manufacturing costs associated with providing a mechanical fastening between the chin support and the front body section are relatively high because extensive manual labor is required to perform the fastening process.
Therefore, it is believed that there is a long-felt and as yet unsolved need for a substantially flat, one-piece and/or hybrid two-piece collar that can be stored more easily than conventional, semi-circular, two-piece collars but that provides more comfort and more support under the chin than provided by existing designs.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a flat cervical collar that eliminates the need for a mechanical fastening at the central portion and distal ends of the chin support. It is also an object of the present invention to provide a flat collar that includes a rear or inner chin support ledge which captures the surface area under the region extending from the chin to each ramus of the mandible, thereby limiting flexing of the chin support relative to the front body section and providing added stability to the cervical region.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a process enabling the front body section and the chin support of a collar to be of unitary construction and a contoured three-dimensional configuration.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a collar with a unitary chin support and a front body section construction that minimizes material, manufacturing, and assembly costs.
It is a still further object of the present invention to provide a flat, one-piece or hybrid two-piece, cervical collar fabricated by a process that permits the thickness of components to be independently varied to control the degree of rigidity and flexibility provided by each component.
Yet another object of the current invention is to provide a flat, one-piece or hybrid two-piece, cervical collar that includes mandible supports that can move independently of the front body section and each other to more readily adapt to the jawline of a wearer.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a flat, one-piece or hybrid two-piece, cervical collar having a mandible support that includes a plurality of openings formed therein permitting the mandible support to conform to each wearer's unique jawline.
Each of the embodiments of the collar of the present invention described below satisfies at least some of these objects and all embodiments of the collar of the present invention collectively satisfy all of these objects.